Armistice Day
by modernities
Summary: He will understand this moment only from the perspective of his future self. Until then, Matthew will try to make things right only as he knows how from the present. But maybe it's Mary who has the answer. Post-2.08 AU, Christmas Special never happened.


_This entire venture was inspired by the last line of the fic. For awhile the line itself has kind of haunted me so I decided to turn it into something. Enjoy the angst xoxo and thanks to chickwriter for the polish._

I.

She was to marry in July, as she and Carlisle had announced they would. Matthew went dismally back to work in May. The funeral from only the month before still hung over him like a damp cloth. Throwing himself back into work was as much a comfort as it was a hardship, yet it was the only thing that could provide any distraction, so he succumbed to it. For the first few days he found himself nodding off at his desk only to be abruptly awoken by a knock at his door or a shift in the sunlight that glanced across his eyes through the open window. For awhile when he couldn't quite shake the plague he was under, he had suggested to Mother that they go back to Manchester for awhile. A change of pace, a change of scenery. When he brought it up over breakfast, she gave him that look of pity, _you poor sweet thing_, calmly told him to take control, and he never mentioned it again.

He hadn't been quite ready to throw himself back into estate work with Robert until June. The climate was not yet ripe for starting big projects—everything was still a bit sluggish after the war—but he thought that it could be valuable to assess what needed upkeep after everything had ground to a halt over the past few years . He started accepting dinner invitations again by late May, and even that was a bit of a struggle. He had only seen her one time since the funeral and it was an image that refused to escape the periphery of his memory.

It was late April and for the first time it felt like the house was properly adjusting to life after the war. All of the damage and upheaval caused by an intrusion of sickness was slowly starting to dissipate, and Matthew didn't quite realize it until that afternoon when he saw Mary out riding for the first time since the war ended. He had decided to take a mid-afternoon walk to clear his mind when he saw her mounting Diamond outside the stables. She didn't see him, and he felt a little bit guilty indulging in this one voyeuristic moment without her knowledge. Obscured from her vision, he observed the severity of her riding gear and how it contrasted darkly against her skin. It took him back to 1912, when everything in his life seemed truly in disarray. His whole makeshift corner of the world—the life he had planned, regulated, justified—had just been seemingly upended with the arrival of a letter. The moment seemed quite foreign now, he could hardly even remember why he had fought against it so hard in the first place. He supposed it was easy to judge himself more harshly in the present; for the first time he realized how clouded perspective is until we actually lunge forward into the future. Our past lives are always that of looking a fool.

Standing there watching her, he could smell the mud of the trenches, smell the gunpowder, taste the bad tea he shared with the men in their small caverns as they lit cigarettes and invented memories. Standing there watching her, he remembered so vividly the year of 1912. He didn't know what had changed him more, his love for her or the war itself. Sometimes he felt like these life stories meshed in certain ways, almost inescapably so. He still had to stroke the stuffed dog in his pocket now and then to tell himself that he had survived the worst of it. All that remained were internal bruises and some minor back pain. That stuffed animal, the crux of his frayed, individual human strands.

II.

The first dinner back at Downton was quite the affair for him. He was nervous when he shouldn't have been. He had accepted the Crawleys not just as distant family, but as his own closest friends. Yet, it was strange how often he still felt so wary around them, still a little unsure of himself in the scheme of things, especially after the return of one supposed Patrick Crawley. After the battles, after Lavinia, so much of life felt like a play in five acts.

When he entered the drawing room, the first thing he noted was the loveliness of the red dress she was wearing—he had never seen it before. The second thing he noticed was that Carlisle was clearly in London for the week. He felt quite nervous suddenly, he shuffled his hands a bit before he resigned to clasping them behind his back as he stood next to Robert. The older man asked him something about coming over the following day to look over some estate proposals, but he only heard white noise.

Matthew often wondered how this had happened, how one could be so distant from one's best friend. As the Crawleys had bustled around to prepare everything for the society wedding, it dawned upon him that his closeness to Mary was undefined. It lacked proportions, depth, reason. He would pace the halls and rooms of Crawley House as though he were a ghost, thinking about their relationship over the past near decade, simply wondering how he could love her even though she was a complete mystery to him at times, how he could love her so much but not be able to muster the courage to stand next to her in the drawing room.

III.

The morning of the day before the wedding, he took a moment to stare out his bedroom window. He could see across the grounds, he could see Downton standing strong and clear in the distance. A pillar in his mind, a pillar of his future. He took in the bricks and stones that bore its rigid tradition, the way it looked so stoic, but how it had become a kind of home for him. Strange, how one's home could feel so alien. It was where he had shared in laughter, in pleasant conversation, it's where he had slowly recuperated over those terrible, terrible months. Mary washing his back, pushing him over the grounds as his fellow men hobbled beside him on crutches with their bleeding war wounds and maligned dignity. It was where he had his first kiss with Mary, it was where Lavinia had died.

And all at once, the fantasy would come crashing down.

His fantasies had tumbled to pieces around him once before, during a garden party that would change his life forever, and in more ways than just one. He had looked at her, her clean and hard beauty, almost like Downton itself. And even as he saw her face crumble in tears, he felt his own dreams of a life worth living erode beneath his emotional footing. How could he comfort her when he needed to run as far away as possible? It was the first of his many sins, and he would not come back for two years.

Was Lavinia his punishment for abandoning Mary? He sometimes felt as though God himself taunted him. _If you hadn't run away the first time, none of this might have happened. Now, you've only hurt two of them. You hurt everyone who cares about you. You are a coward._

So he thought about dead men and trenches. Sometimes it was easier to think of the war then it was to think of Downton; he could morally rationalize the war in his mind but everything that lived outside of it was quite static and raw. It was worst where everything bled into a kind of acidic rainwater. He wondered if he and Mary could have married before he went off to war, how different he might have been out there on the front, a lot more confident, a lot more sure of himself. A toy dog was a poor replacement for the real thing.

Dead men and trenches, Lavinia, Mary. He lined these emotional cases up in his brain, in his memories. They began to blur before his eyes as he turned away from the window and walked downstairs to leave for work.

IV.

She came back from the honeymoon at the beginning of September. He, of course, wasn't at the big house for the arrival, but he would see her at dinner later that night. He felt rather nervous, suddenly regretting never having a proper talk with her before the wedding. He was uncertain with himself as Molesley helped him into his dinner jacket. Her month-long absence had inspired a kind of ambivalence within him—anxious to see her as always, but terrified of the ever-increasing gulf that stood between them. There was too much to say, so much that it almost became nothingness in its amorphous entirety. So much to say that it was pointless to even say it at all.

He fidgeted the entire drive over, so much that even Mother seemed a bit distracted by his antics. They arrived early and he rang the doorbell with hesitation. Carson showed them in, taking his coat. He saw a figure walk into the library. Mother went through to the drawing room but he remained there in the hall, telling her to go on in without him.

He walked over to the library door, just to peek in. He watched her, swathed in semi-darkness as she shelved a book and picked up another. She was Mary, the same but different. She looked no darker even though they had been in the south of Italy for the honeymoon, but her frame was a bit thinner and she held her shoulders differently—they were curiously rigid instead of bearing the relaxed uprightness of a newlywed aristocrat. His eyes raked her from head to stockinged toe and he felt a rush of something repressed inside of him. He glanced towards the wooden floor to gather himself, licking his lips as he looked back up, only to see her eyes connect with his.

She was smiling.

It was 1916 again and he was seeing her after a two year hiatus. She had been dressed in black lace then, now it was blue satin and black chiffon and they were nearly four years older. But she was every year. She was 1912 and he was heir to a land he did not desire. It was 1914 and it was a flirtation over sandwiches. 1915 and she was miles away but in everything and everyone he saw and talked to. 1919 and his head was gently leaning against her temple as they swayed hand-in-hand hand-to-back in the very hall where he stood now. Mary Crawley was just a whole in a particular; time blended so seamlessly when arranged by her presence as milestones.

Something familiar welled up in his eyes as he noticed that her smile wasn't exuberant, but hesitating and pained. But she was smiling at him, nonetheless. Rather stupidly, he raised a hand as if to wave at her. She waved back across the ten foot distance. He looked down and walked slowly into the drawing room.

Dinner had been nice, if a bit awkward. Carlisle hadn't arrived with Mary, but had taken the train directly into London, insisting he had to get back to work the next day. At least that's what Robert said Mary had told him upon arrival. Throughout the evening, Carlisle remained a kind of elephant in the room. Mary didn't seem particularly enthused to discuss the honeymoon, nor particularly enthused about anything in general, so no one brought it up. They moved on to other topics, like his work, Sybil's latest news from Ireland. Robert inquired something or other about the cottages and Edith remarked on the impending autumn weather. Mary would stir her soup and remain attentive to the conversation. She took small sips from her wine glass every time Carlisle was brought up in any form. She would smile widely and give observed, thought-out answers to the inquiry posed. Matthew shifted uncomfortably in his seat and feigned politeness as his mind fogged over.

After drinks in the drawing room, Robert and Cora retired for the evening as the chauffeur came around to take him and Mother home. It was then that he saw Mary steal away into the library again, prompting him to tell Mother that he would walk home. He placed a kiss on her cheek as she and Cousin Violet stepped into the car.

The fire was lit, all of the lamps were on. It reminded him of the first time they had been alone together in the same room. _You mean a great deal_. She stood to the other side of the room near her father's desk, scraping idly at the wood with her thumb nail. Her smile acknowledged his entrance and she looked pleased for the first time that evening.

"I was wondering when I was going to get you alone," she said.

He chuckled lightly, suddenly not knowing what to do with his hands. He looked at her, _really_ looked at her, took in the good color of her dress and the way it brought out the gentle curves of her body, saw the slightly different way she was styling her hair. She looked…like a married woman, somehow more mature, but still with a carefree youthful elegance that was just natural to her being. He saw the ease in her arms again, the softness of her eyes. She leaned against that desk, holding on to it with her fingertips as if to let go might mean she was surrendering herself to some unknown thing.

He smiled again. "Well, here I am," he said loftily.

Silence engulfed them again. The fire popped and she smiled at him nervously before she picked at the desk again. He became serious all of a sudden, fixing his eyes on a point just behind her. He closed them for a second.

"I missed you terribly."

She looked up at him. Her eyes misted at his words. He didn't know if he should stay rooted to his spot or if he should go to her, both options seemed like a bad idea. Something was washing over her that he couldn't quite explain. She let go of the table and threw back her head, her eyes red with stinging tears and irritation.

"Matthew you can not just ignore me for months and then say something like that, as if it means anything to me or makes it all better."

He knew she was right. He could taste the words in his mouth and they were cold, vile, almost a slap in the face.

"I know Mary, I'm sorry. Truly, you must know. I didn't want—_didn't mean _—to ever hurt you, in any way. I just, I needed some distance…from you, from myself, from this place," he said as he waved his arm across the sweep of the room.

"Oh Matthew, that's just how it has always been with you, _always_," she raised her voice, then carefully lowered it so as not to attract someone into the room. "Your inaction has never done anyone in this family any favors."

He paused and waited for it.

"You're just a coward."

He couldn't have felt worse if she had openly slapped him. It was a sting of reality and he could do nothing but nod as he locked his jaw in consternation and breathed heavily before looking back to her eyes. She had the same look on her face as she did those few months ago, when cruel accusations were hurled over a coffin. She was ashen, desperately fragile, mouth agape in stunned agony.

"It's not fair for anyone, Matthew." Her voice lowered, trembled. She dabbed at her eyes with a finger.

"I know," he replied,"it still doesn't mean I'm not truly sorry for hurting you."

He looked at brown eyes were truth and meaning, but tonight, she was oddly impervious. He walked over to where she leaned against the desk. She looked frightened for a second. He paused, then gently reached for the inside of her wrist. Her glove was soft. He could still feel her pulse through the thin fabric. He allowed her to flow through his veins like the darkest burgundy wine.

She glanced down at his hand for a second before meeting his unsteady gaze. When eyes found each other, he looked down nervously and licked his lips. He gently glanced back upward, pausing at her mouth before he allowed his eyes to dance briefly across her face. He didn't quite know how to ask his next question without seeming selfish. Mostly, he feared that he already knew the answer. He lifted his other hand to cradle her cheek. She leaned in to it and exhaled as he tried to ignore the effect that the rise and fall of her breast had on him. He wanted to stall time, so he let his forehead relax against her's for the briefest of moments. He allowed himself one unguarded action as he leaned down to press a gentle kiss to her jawline, still cradling the other side of her face like a prayer. She whimpered and clutched the lapels of his coat, stepping back after a moment to create a much needed gulf between their cracked bodies.

She stared at his chest as he let the words slip from his dampened lips.

"Are you…content? I mean, are you…happy?"

She looked up and held his gaze, as if the question had no effect on her. Ever so slightly she turned her face out from his palm, as if considering his inquiry. She stared impassively at the pillar behind him.

"I'm not unhappy, I suppose. Though I don't know if that is the same thing as being happy. I could never really tell."

Thus, she remained the same as she had always been. Which meant that she wasn't.

V.

Oddly enough, the tension eased after that night. Haxby wasn't terribly far away, so Mary still came to Downton for dinner often, especially on the nights when Richard stayed in London. She was always eerily calm about her husband constantly being away for work, and he didn't know if this was a sign of her growing contentment with her new life or her utter indifference to it. Maybe a little bit of both, he figured.

Nevertheless, she laughed more, talked more. She visited Crawley House one Saturday en route from Downton on a visit. She shared with him and Mother some stories from the honeymoon. The beach was lovely in late summer and the food was simply splendid. He had expected himself to be a little more jealous as she talked of her honeymoon—both because months ago he had been prepared to go on his own and because of the fact that Mary's own honeymoon was with another man—but mostly he was thrilled that her spirits seemed to be a bit more unguarded. He hoped that much of it had to do with the talk they shared; he certainly knew that a weight had been lifted off his chest. He went to work in higher spirits, came home much happier, and even found that he was throwing himself more fully into estate work. Dinners at Downton were pleasant affairs now instead of courteous obligations.

But, he inevitably wondered how long it would last. If his past taught him anything, it's that his relationship with Mary was one of cycles. They would come together, then fall apart, over and over again. It seemed to be their destiny that they would mirror the history of civilizations. They came together because of need and attempted to destroy their feelings for each other for the same reason. It was their weird survival method, he supposed. They were like clanking pieces of metal, sloppy and inconsistent.

He prayed to God every night that she would just be happy. He believed—or tried to trick himself into believing, rather—that if she could just find a corner of her life where she was content, then maybe he could move on with his. He didn't know what it was about Mary Crawley, but her sadness was his catalyst. He could read it in her demeanor, her posture, the way she set her tea spoon down on the china, the conversation she chose to engage in at the dinner table. He remembered that first night at Downton when he was on leave from the war—he stood next to Robert and Lavinia, looking down the aisle. She was the convergence point, all eyelines led to her. She was Lady Mary Crawley, not a hair out of place, her dress was stunning. She looked immaculate as she shook his mother's hand so tenderly. It was from this that he understood that the tighter she looked, the harder she was trying. Mary Crawley lived within the confines of herself. She wasn't so much a piece of performance art as she was a grappling survivor.

And yet, he was still so incredibly confused. He walked to Lavinia's grave one morning with a fresh batch of flowers from the garden when he saw her there. Of all things, she was kneeling on the grass in her day clothes. She wasn't even in proper mourning clothes typical of grave visits; this was just Mary Crawley passing by to say hello. He didn't know if he should interrupt her or not. They were on decent enough terms and he feared that approaching her and inevitably bringing up the issue of Lavinia would create an unneeded rustle in the complacency. So, he stood off to the side like the coward he knew he was.

Clouds were moving in, blocking the sunlight of minutes ago. He saw her look up to the sky in observation, then glance back down. She pressed two fingers to her lips and then touched the gravestone with them lightly. With that, she once again made her face impassive, got up from her knees, and walked out of the graveyard. His eyes followed her form as she walked off into the shaded distance. He waited until she was out of eyesight to approach the gravestone, lay down his own flowers, and then leave as if he had never come.

VI.

It was dark and damp. Everything happened within seconds but those brief heartbeats stretched out in to what felt like infinitude. He just remembered chanting her name like a silent hymn over and over again in his mind and then felt them roll from his feeble, mud-caked lips. _Mary._

His mind was fogged, his eyes were bleary. He could feel a weight on top of him as he looked up towards the sky and saw black ash. He saw storm clouds, could hear the distant crack of guns and war and shame. The earth beneath him smelled like cigarettes and death. It was all coming in as if at an echo. He heard everything two times, sometimes three. He couldn't breathe, but he couldn't quite tell if he was coughing either. As he tried to come to full consciousness, he saw someone on top of him—he could make out faint blonde hair beneath the grim. He couldn't lift his head, he could only press his eyes down as far as his remaining bodily strength would allow—he saw the man's body, a tall and long one.

All at once he felt a searing pain in his arms; he wanted to cry out but he couldn't open his mouth. The scream ruptured inside of him like a broken prayer, it tore at his lungs and whispered through the pores of his body. He felt a tear roll down his temple. Of all that pressed upon him, he felt the tear.

Something manic went off in the center of himself. He was trying to reach for it, but his hand wouldn't move. He needed to hold it when his consciousness was failing him, he needed the last piece of strength he had left.

_Move your hand to your pocket, you can do this_.

Nothing.

He suddenly felt weaker than he had ever felt before. His face twisted in pain and anguish and as he coughed up chunks of bloody dirt he looked up at the sky and tried to breathe.

Everything became silence. He imagined a dove flying over him, he tried to picture sunlight through the smoke and musk that surrounded him, he tried to imagine a light rain that would clean his face and wash him of this sin and suffering.

He imagined her. He thought of the tall, long outline of her frame and the shadow it cast along green-yellow grass. A tall, long reed against a gentle stream; her snow-white complexion a reminder of the beautiful English winter. Harsh, silent and impervious, majestic and awe-inspiring.

He thought of her skin, the dusting of freckles along her collarbone, the dryness of her voice, the way she licked her lips when she imbibed deeply from her wine glass.

He thought of that day under the tree, how she stuttered on her words and how he desperately wanted to ask her _why can't you say yes, please tell me what is hurting you_. But he didn't. He hadn't cared, he hadn't wanted to know. He had been scared to know.

_You were so selfish, Matthew. You were so rash_.

The last thing he saw was an image of her coming down the stairs. She was dressed in white, she wore a veil like a halo. Her hand ran smoothly along the banister.

He held on to her as he let go of life. The next time he would regain full consciousness, he was looking at her face from a hospital bed. In that moment, he had truly believed in God.

VII.

He received a message from her on Saturday asking him to meet her at the bench near the tree at half past two. He couldn't possibly know why, for all he had believed, they were on easy terms. Or maybe it was because they were on easy terms, he didn't know. He had tried being friendly without being intrusive, allowing them to be companions but with a block of distant understanding.

He arrived about ten minutes early, he supposed he had walked a bit faster out of hurried nervousness. He collected himself briefly, allowing his muscles to relax against the stained wood of the bench. He remembered being a boy, a naïve and thoughtless boy, who saw a pretty girl sitting in this exact place. As he was leaving the big house he had seen her engrossed in a book. Before he was to pass by her he took a moment from outside the house to just observe her unguarded. He could almost see the ticks and turns within her mind, the way she took in stories, the way she almost saw herself as a character inside of a plot, a plot that inevitably moves towards an ending that no one but the almighty author could control. She knew she was a device in a larger game. As he passed by her, she had called out to him. He had greeted her and then took a seat next to her where they would let the Spring day wash over them. Flash forward only a few years later and at the same bench she would bare her soul to him in only a way that Lady Mary Crawley could—not in a plea of desperation, or even in an earnest sentiment tinged with overwrought meaning. No, it would be an offhand remark of possibility.

_I don't have to marry him, you know. _

Maybe that's where it all changed for him.

He heard someone approaching behind him, a ghostly light air brushed the back of his neck. He turned to see her. She wore a small smile on her face and a coat to guard against the November chill. She held her arms around her body to protect against the frigid air.

"Hello, how are you?" he said, standing up politely to greet her.

She smiled back at him in ease. It felt like several seconds that she just looked at him with that knowing look. She laughed gently and then glanced back down to the grass.

"Oh I'm fine I suppose, how about you?"

He nodded politely. "Very well, the weather has been considerably kind lately and work is picking up more and more."

"Oh that's wonderful, I'm very glad you have something to keep your mind occupied, you know, after everything..." she ended **.**

Her gentle statement comforted him a bit, strangely. He smiled in regard and shifted his feet as their conversation once more descended into a quiet murmur. He wondered when it had become this hard to keep a conversation going.

"So I got your message, was there something in particular you wanted to discuss? We can have a walk around the grounds if you like?"

She looked pensive for a moment as she stared off into the distant grounds. The impending winter wrapped them in a momentary silence. She seemed wistful suddenly, a small smile ignited her face slowly but sacredly. Her eyes were still locked on something far behind him.

"You know, before the war, you never did take me to see the cottages," she said wistfully. As the words rolled off her lips, she slowly brought herself to look at him.

He laughed a bit, curious as to why she would suddenly bring this up. "No I suppose I didn't," he chuckled lightly.

She looked down pensively again at the bench where he had been sitting only moments ago. Something odd and unknown flickered in her eyes as she grasped at its wooden side and dug into it with her index finger.

"Why don't you take me now?"

He looked at her curiously, not because he didn't want to take her, but because it seemed like a strange request after…everything that had transpired.

"Yes, of course, but…are you sure? The project was abandoned after the war and we've only recently began looking into it again…"

"Yes, I'm aware," she said quickly. "I just…thought it would be nice, is all."

"Well then of course, I would love to," he stammered.

For a split second he thought of offering an arm to her, but stopped himself. Instead they walked in silent companionship, talking in random intervals about useless things like his job and Carlisle's ongoing renovations to Haxby. It was a bit awkward to say the least; there was something stormy about her calmness.

Upon arrival, he noted how much it felt the same to be back. He hadn't actually been up to the cottages in awhile—not since before the war at all, actually—yet funnily it didn't seem as if any time had passed on them. Some of them were half painted from the outside, others were still boarded up. It reminded him of how much time had stopped for a brief period, yet on the front it seemed like there wasn't enough time in the world.

He looked over to Mary, her gentle eyes scanning the surroundings. It struck him suddenly that Robert had never taught her how to manage an estate, never included her in the land projects. Her eyes had a curious wonder about them.

He grabbed two of her fingers, held them gently in the flex of his hand. "Come here, there was always one I wanted you to see."

She smiled gently as he dragged her softly towards a small blue cottage that sat towards the back; the windows had bright white shutters, slightly chipped from weathering. "This one was always my favorite," he said as he opened the door for her. There wasn't any furniture on the inside, but the built-in furnishings were lovely—a small fireplace, delicate wooden cabinets. The cottage had always appealed to his more simple sensibilities. It had a cozy feeling, a feeling of family, one that was very different from Downton. In a different place or time, he could even imagine himself living in it.

He watched as she walked around. She glided her hands on the dusty cabinets, pawed at a cobweb that hung on the shelf near it. Sunlight filtered through the window, highlighting the air dust against her face. She looked enchanted for awhile, a kind of serenity glancing across her features as she took in the space.

"God, could you imagine living here?" She laughed disinterestedly.

He chuckled. "I don't know, I actually quite like it. The bedrooms to the back are just as nice, they're just through here…" he said airily as he gestured to the other side of the room.

But she wasn't paying attention.

She walked over to the front window, stared out of it for a few seconds before lifting a palm to touch the glass. Her fingers left trails behind where she disturbed the layer of film upon it. She didn't say anything, her dark back towards him. She was softly silhouetted where the sunlight moved past her frame.

"What is it? What's the matter?" he asked after a moment's end.

Sliding her fingers from the glass, she turned to face him. Her face was impassive.

"You know, I always wonder what would have happened, if I was able to inherit," she remarked offhandedly. She walked to one of the walls by where Matthew stood, touching the wood much as she did the cold glass only moments ago. "I wonder… what I would have been like. I imagine Papa would have shown me around the estate, showed me how to manage it, helped me to understand all of those dreadful legal documents he usually just hands off to Murray. To be honest it all sounds rather dull, doesn't it?"

He looked at her quite curiously. "I suppose it can be, but some of it can be rather interesting," he gestured around the room, "like the cottages, getting to know some of the workers and tenants."

She smiled knowingly at him. He gathered himself for a moment.

"But nevertheless you still wanted it," he said evenly.

"Yes, I did. Suppose it doesn't really matter now though, does it?"

He smiled guiltily. "I suppose it doesn't."

A pause, a hesitation. He swallowed.

"Mary, why did you want to come here?"

She looked down briefly, only looking back up she had visibly gathered herself and set her face like flint. She bit her lip, but she couldn't hide the uneasiness in her eyes.

"I suppose…I wanted us to just be in a quiet place together..."

He ventured a small and hesitant smile before she continued.

"...so that we can say goodbye."

Something like ice water and befuddlement washed over him. He squinted his brow, trying to understand. "What could you possibly mean?"

Her composure cracked to bits, she twiddled her fingers madly and walked across the room back to the window. He followed her, grasping her shoulder gently as she moved past him.

"Mary, tell me what's wrong, please. Has he hurt you?"

Tears were formulating in her eyes as she reached up to lay her hand where his rested on her shoulder. "No, it's nothing like that…it's just...I need this to end, I need _us_ to end." Her voice was desperate, longing, every vowel she uttered seemed to take twice as long to escape her gentle mouth. He simply looked down at her, not quite believing what she was telling him. It was unnerving to hear the words, but to also see Lady Mary Crawley in a state of nervous discomposure, it made his world seem unbalanced and unsafe.

"But, we're fine, Mary. We're absolutely fine, I don't understand at all what this is about." He stepped back briefly from her, needing to gain some sense and recollection of himself. "I mean, we've been friendly, cordial! You know I would never do anything to ruin what you have, surely you have to know that." He didn't want to come off as pleading, but he feared he was. Parts of his body felt numb.

She chuckled sadly as she walked the remaining distance to the window. "Oh Matthew," she whispered quite pityingly. "We can't help it. You know how this goes."

His mouth agape, he ran his hand through his hair.

She looked down, concentrating far too hard on the floorboard near his foot. "We've been here before."

And so they had.

"But I just…" he looked around the room frustratedly, his voice rising by the second, "how can you just say…goodbye? I mean, circumstance has put us together it's what has always been our curse since the first day, how do you not see that?"

She nodded. "I know, and maybe it starts with fewer dinners at Downton. Maybe it's…less chatter in the drawing room. Just because circumstance put us together doesn't mean we didn't find a way to each other, Matthew. We wouldn't be here today in this cottage alone if that wasn't the case."

And she was right. The worst part of this whole catastrophe was that he knew she was right. In that moment he swore he felt something inside of him drop. He felt sick, his legs felt airy and his mouth was dry. He somehow managed to hold the last strands of his composure together, willing himself to not break down as he had in front of her before.

"I'm sorry, Matthew."

Her face was broken, white like ivory. Her bones seemed to jut from her body as she held herself together, her hands twisting in front of her even more than before. She fidgeted with the buttons of her coat for a second before she let out a small sob. He looked at her, for a small second he felt nothing but compassion, felt nothing but respect, felt nothing but admiration. The moment quickly descended into a fire where his guilt seeped into everything and the utter desperation of the situation loomed over him like a harbinger. He snapped his eyes shut and when he reopened them to look at her, he saw nothing but her. She was Mary Crawley. In the midst of the chaos, for the first time, he saw a girl, a pure and simple thing that had waltzed into his life once upon a time. In the midst of the chaos, he suddenly felt nothing but gratitude. They were both beloved, they were both culpable. And here they were.

He could do nothing in that moment but smile as he saw her hesitation and sorrow.

"And what could you possibly be sorry for?" he asked gently, the smile reaching his eyes for probably the first time in a year. "You've done nothing, Mary."

"Oh, but I have…I have, Matthew."

They were under the tree again, August of 1914. She was stammering words and he was blind to whatever pain was emanating from her because the hope of his future was slowly falling around his feet, a wave hitting his sandcastle. _You are such a coward, Matthew. You were such a coward_.

But he didn't ask her, even now. He just looked at her. A sob raked her body as she walked over to him and closed the distance.

For a few minutes, he just held her, crushed her bones to his body, her arms wound around his neck, hands playing with the hair that brushed the nape of his neck. She was so small he felt his arms could encircle her twice, but she fit against him so evenly. He leaned into the curve of her neck and breathed in the smell of her skin. He pressed his lips gently against the spot underneath her ear; he wanted to whisper something to her but his own vocabulary suddenly made no sense to him. He wished in that moment that time would have stood still—it felt like one of those moments where it should have—but it didn't. Quite funnily, time seemed to rush past them, almost leaving them where they stood by themselves and as they were, two almost lovers wrapped in a traverse mess of circumstance.

It worried Matthew that this didn't seem final. Was this the last time he would ever hold her to him? The last time they would steal a moment alone? The last time they would be able to isolate the world so far away from themselves that he could read her like the etchings on a stone tablet? He needed to make it feel final, he needed something to hold on to.

Or rather, something he couldn't hold on to anymore.

He pulled her into him once more as he rubbed his cheek gently against her temple. As he relinquished his hold on her, she swayed against him, her hands landing on his shoulders, a port in the storm. He closed his eyes as he brought one hand to her face and the other grappled somewhere at her coat near her waist. He felt short of breath in uneven paces, felt the gentle rivulet of her tears pool in his palm as he stroked her jawline.

_You were such a coward, Matthew. _

Her eyes fluttered upward to meet his, starry and glazed over, small puffs of breath emanated from her mouth. He brought his arms down nervously to his sides and he decided to take the moment.

It was a ghost of a kiss. He placed his mouth gently over hers before allowing himself to gently relax into her. He sucked softly at her top lip as she whimpered into him, her hands gently letting go of his shoulders to move down the length of his arms until they were hand in hand. Even as they began to part he lingered still, their heavy breaths mingling for a moment as they regained a sense of time and space. She leaned in to rest her head against his chest as he stroked her hair, he a pillar and she a weary traveler.

"I have to give you something," he whispered.

At his words she took a gentle step back, peered into his stony face. "What?"

He reached into his pocket and pulled it out, the dog. He heard her suck in a breath.

"I've...been carrying it around, ever since the war. I suppose...it's time...you had it back." He smiled a tired smile.

She stared at the dog as it was clenched in his fist, her eyes first small with sorrow then wide with understanding. She nodded perceptively as she suppressed a slight cough. "Thank you," she whispered to her feet before looking up to meet his eyes. "Thank you for taking such good care of him."

He wanted to say so many things in that moment. He wanted to tell her that if he had loved her less, he might have been able to make her happy. That after all of this, the day he still thinks back to most is that August day in 1914, where everything had been built to such great heights that its crash caused every piece to fall in a different direction. That after all this time, he was still trying to pick up those pieces in the midst of carnage and smoke. Mostly, he wanted to tell her to take care of herself, that he wanted her to be happy. But as he looked at this woman holding a toy dog in her hand, he realized it was not his place anymore. He only hoped that maybe it was, once.

She collected herself and took a deep breath as she used the sleeve of her coat to pat her face dry. She adjusted her face into place and looked at him, straightforward and determined. She smiled**,** reached up to cup his cheek, then slowly made her way towards the cottage door.

"I'm sorry."

The cry erupted from him before he could think to stop it. She paused for a moment then turned to face him, her features soft with understanding.

"For what?"

"I don't know, really..." he stammered, "for everything, I suppose. I left and didn't come back for two years and I...just, the war... it took me away and then...and then Lavinia..." He cut himself off as he looked down to collect himself. "There was just some days when it felt like no one could possibly understand everything, the toll it all took when I came back to Downton, and then Lavinia after all of it. The war just clouded me, I suppose...and then by the time I came to myself...you were married and it was all a bit...too late."

She smiled at him, knowingly.

"Oh Matthew..."

His eyes locked on to hers as she uttered her final words.

"We all fought a war."


End file.
